Hades 2 left Steam Early Access faster even though it's bigger than Hades

Hades 2 is roughly twice the size of the original, but Supergiant’s sequel spent far less time in Steam Early Access. Creative director Greg Kasavin told GamesRadar+ that the studio intentionally entered Early Access later in development, after they already had more of the game in place.

Kasavin said, “We launched into Early Access relatively later in development compared with the original game, when we had more content compared with the original.” He added, “Deciding when to launch a game into Early Access is an important decision for a developer. You want your game to be far enough along that it can be played and enjoyed without a lot of caveats, but you don’t want your game to be so far along that you don’t have time to respond to all the feedback you get.”

For context, Hades first went into Early Access in December 2018 and reached full release in September 2020. Hades 2 hit full release in September 2025, which the studio says came about a year and four months after its Early Access debut.

Kasavin also pointed out that the team announced Hades 2 much earlier than they did the original. Supergiant revealed the sequel in December 2022 rather than launching straight into Early Access the same day. That early announcement let the studio gather player reaction and shape the game before the Early Access window began, which Kasavin framed as part of why the team already knew “what needed to be in” the build.

The end result was a larger game that had already crossed several internal quality thresholds before community testing began. That allowed Supergiant to use Early Access time for focused feedback and iteration rather than large-scale content construction. For readers still digging through the original Hades’ development, our Hades Early Access patch coverage looks at how the first game’s Early Access patches shaped its path to 1.0.

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Battle beyond the Underworld using dark sorcery to take on the Titan of Time in this bewitching sequel to the award-winning rogue-like dungeon crawler.